One of the Team
Alan Weiss
DECEMBER 21, 2020
If you really want to appear as part of the client’s team and a partner of the buyer, stop parking in the “visitors” parking spaces.
one-of-the-team 
How to Win Your Consulting Case Competition
Tom Spencer
MARCH 29, 2024
Maybe you’ve been a part of a team that for some reason failed to even make the first cut because of inexperience or a lack of cohesion. Skipping any of these steps will severely limit a team’s potential, but adhering to them will result in a winning performance. The most important characteristics to look for are grit and willpower.
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Why Having More Meetings Is Not The Answer
Markovitz Consulting
AUGUST 3, 2021
One of the participants in my Conclusion Trap class was grappling with a persistent problem at her company: their website regularly crashed after upgrades. She believed that one of the primary drivers of the problem was poor communication between two teams. It was that the critical teams report up through different groups.
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Managing Meetings: How to Drive Productivity and Success
Tom Spencer
APRIL 12, 2024
This not only provides structure but also ensures that the meeting stays focused and on track. During the meeting, document action items and assign them to specific team members. This not only ensures accountability but also contributes to a culture of responsibility and ownership within the team.
Meeting 78
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ABCs of Data Normalization for B2B Marketers
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
However, if lead generation, reporting, and measuring ROI is important to your marketing team, then data normalization matters - a lot. At its core, data normalization is the process of creating context within your marketing database by grouping similar values into one common value. Data normalization. Why is this so essential?
How Large Companies Prepare for Project Management Challenges
PM Alliance
FEBRUARY 23, 2024
Teams responsible for moving projects from idea to reality must be ready to overcome the challenges that sometimes exist in bigger firms. Teams responsible for moving projects from idea to reality must be ready to overcome the challenges that sometimes exist in bigger firms. However, this complicates things for project teams.
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Why We Continue Our Quest for Silver Bullets
Johanna Rothman
FEBRUARY 27, 2024
Here are just the one I've experienced in the 70s, 80s, 90s: Structured Analysis and Design. There is one silver bullet for product development—the speed of team learning time. That's because they don't have unplanned feedback loops as in the image on the left. That changes the questions teams often ask themselves.
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You step up – I’ll step back: the coaching approach to becoming a leader
The Management Centre
MARCH 7, 2024
=mc Director Laura Slater blogs on a the benefits of using the ‘coach approach’ with your teams. As you become more senior in an organisation, an exciting aspect of moving up is being able to actually set the direction for your team or department – and the organisation. Give them the answer they need so they can get on.
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How to Change a Workshop In-Person Game to a Remote Simulation for Effective Results
Johanna Rothman
FEBRUARY 6, 2024
” That's where people emulate a Scrum approach, complete with asking the team to do “more.” And very few organizations want to take the time to bring people to one location where everyone can be in the same physical place. And we need to make that simulation something that works when the team is distributed.
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Fighting Loneliness on Remote Teams
Harvard Business
MARCH 22, 2024
This article will share four evidence-based strategies that leaders and managers can use to build community in their remote teams. These strategies include reflecting on what’s working for your team, recognizing your team in a meaningful way, providing support for career development, and communicating with your team as a whole person.
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Want Both Efficiency and Effectiveness? Lower WIP and Right-Size Work
Johanna Rothman
OCTOBER 31, 2023
Assign one project at a time to a cross-functional team, don't add more work, all that good stuff. Then move to efficiency, by asking the managers and the teams to lower their WIP and right-size their work. Here are some: When people don't know what to work on, they start more work. Why can't I have both?”
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Boss vs Leader: Two Distinct Management Approaches
Tom Spencer
FEBRUARY 2, 2024
No one likes a tyrannical, controlling, and disempowering boss. Boss Management Traditional management (also known as “boss management”), places strong emphasis on hierarchy and control — the key objective is to keep staff in line and focused on their respective tasks, without any questions asked.
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How to improve your meetings
Halo Psych
APRIL 17, 2024
6-minute read In the past few months, I’ve run several team development days for board-level teams in different sectors. Based on my experience, not just of the past few months, but of many years working across all sectors, leadership teams from different sectors have more in common than not. Poorly planned meetings.
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4 Reasons Why Managers Fail
Harvard Business
APRIL 11, 2024
Ultimately, one in five managers said they would prefer not being people managers given a choice. Further analysis found that 48% of managers are at risk of failure based on two criteria: 1) inconsistency in current performance and 2) lack of confidence in the manager’s ability to lead the team to future success.
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Rebranding ADEI for the Culture Wars
UPD Consulting
JANUARY 29, 2024
For one thing, ADEI principles have become more widely known, a long-overdue result of social justice protests and organizing. Research overwhelmingly shows the ways diverse teams lead to better outcomes for companies. 2005 was an interesting year. A new site called YouTube had just been launched. Times have changed. Yes, no doubt.
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5 Game-changing Behaviors to Make Your Next Meeting a Homerun
Makarios Consulting
FEBRUARY 27, 2024
What made my client’s annual leadership team meeting a pleasure was five healthy behaviors that were on full display throughout the two days. Respecting one another Listening to understand flowed out of a second healthy behavior, that of respecting one another. On this team, none of that was necessary.
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Unemployed Agilists: How to Increase Your Value to Get a Great Job, Part 3
Johanna Rothman
MARCH 18, 2024
These are generalities and we all know how bad generalities are at describing the skills of any one person. The more collaborative your team, the more everyone can gain both kinds of expertise. For example, if your entire team mobs/ensembles every day, every member of your team probably has both kinds of expertise.
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How Product Risks Differ from Project Risks
Johanna Rothman
JUNE 5, 2023
BTW, I like product development teams that stay together, preferably on one product at a time. In that case, I optimize for the team that (mostly) stays together, where they learn how to learn together. That way, people can choose their teams, and the team stays together. See Manage It!
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What’s Wrong With Detailed Gantt Charts and How to Make Fewer Details Work for You
Johanna Rothman
MARCH 26, 2024
I suspect their teams hide their feedback loops. When people create a high-level WBS, no one sees the feedback loops or the dependencies. In addition, I ask teams to show visual progress , such as in a demo. When I say that to my clients, some of them tell me they do find use in Gantt charts. All my experiences negate theirs.
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A (Video) Conversation with Stefan Wolpers About His Scrum Anti-Patterns Book
Johanna Rothman
APRIL 19, 2024
I had the pleasure of interviewing Stefan Wolpers about his new book: The Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide: Challenges Every Scrum Team Faces and How to Overcome Them.
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Research: More People Use Mental Health Benefits When They Hear That Colleagues Use Them Too
Harvard Business
APRIL 22, 2024
To understand why, a team of researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial with 2,400 Novartis employees who worked in the UK, Ireland, India, and Malaysia. Employees were shown one of six framings that were designed to overcome two key barriers: privacy concerns and usage concerns.
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Unemployed Agilists: Review the Hype Cycle & Your Agility to Help You Manage Future Job Changes, Part 4
Johanna Rothman
MARCH 21, 2024
Sure, if a team reduces its feedback loops, the team will learn faster. No one can force change on people with more hierarchical power. I'm not blaming the manifesto writers—no one invited a manager-type person to the meeting. While those skills are useful, they are not enough. Insert maniacal laughter here.)
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Microsoft Teams Phone Licensing
Kraft Kennedy
APRIL 16, 2024
Comparing telephony costs is typically the first step for organizations considering using Microsoft Teams as a phone system, but determining the licenses required to use Teams as a phone system, can be daunting. There are many options, but as a starting point, your license purchases will depend on what you already own.
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How WIP Insights Allow Us to Revisit Brooks’ Law About Adding People to a Team
Johanna Rothman
OCTOBER 2, 2023
Several people on LinkedIn commented on my post, Want Better and Faster Results? Increase Team Size and Reduce WIP. They wondered if adding more people to a small team would violate Brooks' Law. The quote I found most useful was on p. Brooks also said on p. Everyone stays on the team at all times.
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The Broken Leadership Development Model: Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short
Clarity Consultants
NOVEMBER 16, 2023
Lack of Adaptability One of the primary flaws in traditional leadership development models lies in their rigidity. Many programs adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach, assuming the same skills and qualities can transform anyone into a successful leader. The need for effective leadership has never been more crucial.
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The Cost of Avoiding Feedback at All Costs
Makarios Consulting
FEBRUARY 21, 2024
We have seen time and again that leaders will: Move the employee to another department , passing on the problem without ever confronting it. Shift the blame from the person’s performance to the system, the process, the team, the vendor, the client, or any other handy scapegoat. Not giving feedback is a triple-lose situation.
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How To Recognize Effective Project and Program Management
Johanna Rothman
JANUARY 6, 2023
Random Feature Roadmap for One Program. Several people on social media have denigrated the terms “project manager” and “program manager.” ” These people claim there is no need for either role in an effective team, especially an agile team because the team can manage its own deliverables.
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What Skills Do Firms Want in Aspiring Consultants?
Tom Spencer
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
Problem solving It should come as no surprise that problem solving is one of the most useful skills for a consultant, whose job role practically centres around solving problems for organisations, businesses, and individuals. On a daily basis, consultants are helping their clients resolve challenging issues to bring about desired outcomes.
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How Agile Managers Use Uncertainty to Create Better Decisions Faster
Johanna Rothman
NOVEMBER 9, 2023
That's one of the reasons they create huge backlogs and long roadmaps. One of these managers said, “I have so much uncertainty and ambiguity. But most of my business focuses on coaching, workshops, or consulting. Does that sound like an agile team to you? However, managers don't create features as agile teams do.
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Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1
Johanna Rothman
JANUARY 10, 2024
I see many teams and team members who say, “Agile stinks. When I work with these teams or their managers, I realize they're not demoing or retrospecting on a regular basis. And don't get me started on how coaches tend to do life coaching instead of support for agility.) That's not all.
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Recognize the Problems That Prevent Effective Meetings (Collocated, Remote, Hybrid)
Johanna Rothman
FEBRUARY 27, 2023
Then, there are the meeting cleanliness problems, such as no agenda, no minutes, and no one facilitator. All of these problems are worse when it comes to so-called hybrid teams. There is not one type of hybrid team. Instead, there are satellite teams and cluster teams. We all have them. Most of us hate them.
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How to Create Better Products With Much Less of a Backlog
Johanna Rothman
APRIL 18, 2024
How can you prevent an overstuffed backlog, roadmap, or all those great ideas from interrupting your team from finishing its work? Does the team react and fix the problems right away? Or, do they feel they have to put the problems on a backlog somewhere? I offered “now” advice in that newsletter.
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7 Employee Comments that Destroy a Team
Rick Conlow
FEBRUARY 15, 2023
An effective team does not come easy. One way to determine how a team is doing involves listening to their comments to one another or others. However, these comments are also a wakeup call for a manager to improve his or her team leadership skills. Process involves how well people work together on that team.
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Learning to Lead: Communicating with Clients and Teams
Tom Spencer
DECEMBER 8, 2023
In consulting, one of the most coveted and highest compensated roles is that of the engagement manager (EM). They often have significant influence on the success of a consulting engagement, as they often interact directly with clients and oversee engagements end-to-end. This role is crucial to the functions of a consulting firm.
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Tired of Fake Agility? Choose When to Experiment and When to Deliver
Johanna Rothman
NOVEMBER 27, 2023
I wrote it because I'm concerned about what I see in too many supposedly agile teams: Crazy-long backlogs and roadmaps. Worse, sometimes the team doesn't demo or deliver. Because no one cares until they deliver “all” of it. (An Too little joy or ease, often because the team's WIP is too high.
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Harmony & Rythm in Organizational Development
Harmonious Workplaces
FEBRUARY 8, 2024
Parallels between shared music-making and OD In the dynamic world of organizational development (OD), business leaders oftentimes find themselves on a continuous quest to find innovative and effective strategies for fostering teamwork, navigating change, and enhancing employee well-being.
Creating a Cohesive Team for Corporate Transformation Projects
Harvard Business
SEPTEMBER 29, 2023
Hollywood films have long been made by teams of independent contractors and employees of different production companies brought together for short-term projects. Companies have embraced this model for transformations, with data showing that 45% of the people on these projects are not regular employees.
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How To Give Feedback As A New Manager
Girard Training Solutions
APRIL 17, 2024
Now that you’re a manager, your job is to get results through your team members and guide them to perform at their best. However, many managers struggle to get their team committed to doing their work to the best of their abilities. Why does this happen? Transitioning into a managerial role requires acquiring a new set of skills.
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Fight Ageism, Fuel Growth with Inclusive Hiring & Retention
Harmonious Workplaces
FEBRUARY 15, 2024
Since I’ve shown a little grey in my beard, I can verify from my experience that some hiring managers do not look favorably on older workers, especially job seekers. Since I’ve shown a little grey in my beard, I can verify from my experience that some hiring managers do not look favorably on older workers, especially job seekers.
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Hidden Heroes: Business Operations in Companies of All Sizes
Tom Spencer
OCTOBER 27, 2023
Business operations teams play a critical role in the success and growth of both big companies and small startups. Let’s explore the role of business operations teams in greater detail for both big companies and small startups.
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Say Goodbye to Strategic Planning? What’s Next?
Organizational Talent Consulting
MARCH 11, 2024
Is it time for executives and teams to say goodbye to strategic planning? Annual off-site meetings to change dates on unsuccessful strategies don't make sense. One of the most significant downfalls of contemporary strategic planning is the failure to account for a growing uncertainty in a fast-paced, generative AI environment.
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See and Resolve Team Dependencies, Part 4: All Component Teams, Complex Product
Johanna Rothman
MARCH 8, 2022
The larger your product, the more likely you have components teams. I often see component teams because of the architecture of the product. Also, the teams find it tempting to think of the common GUI and API as components. One is the InterRelated Program. The teams might not use the GUI and API as components.
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Ep070 Ethan Nash
Girard Training Solutions
APRIL 23, 2024
On this episode of Management Development Unlocked, Eric sits down with Ethan Nash. Eric and Ethan dig into his background in management, consulting, and leadership development and training, the one thing managers should know to be successful, and what it means to create a psychological contract between a manager and their team.
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Easier Product Development Decisions and Why Backlogs Might Slow You Down (Day 3)
Johanna Rothman
AUGUST 31, 2022
I only count words more than one person can consume. Why Teams Use Backlogs. I don't have just one product for my business. And I'm not a team working on just one feature set or a product. I'm one person working on everything I need to do for my business. But I can get ready to finish.
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